DC Comics art & cover collections
   DC Comics Covergirls
   Batman Cover To Cover
   Cover Story - The DC Comics Art Of Brian Bolland
   Batman Masterpieces
   Mythology. The DC Comics Art Of Alex Ross
   DC Comics - The 75th Anniversary Poster Book
   75 Years Of DC Comics - The Art Of Modern Mythmaking

Various gatherings of the art produced over the decades, ranked here with the best presentation first to least so on the bottom.

DC Comics Covergirls (2005 - DC Comics) (by Louise Simonson) A 9-by-12 inch volume with 208 pages. 125 of those pages feature a single comic cover - a majority being blown up to fill the page. Another 23 pages take some image found elsewhere in the book and blow it up beyond full-page, crop to focus on just its 'star', and present them as full-bleeds. Then there are another 48 pages that gather two or more smaller images together. I found Simonson's text very enjoyable. It took the book well beyond "Look at all the cheesecake we've produced over the years !" and instead highlighted that many featured females in DC Comics were presented as strong, determined individuals in their own right. She delivered that point within a breezy, forthright conversation that acknowledged that these fantasy figures were going to be idealized physically, while giving them personality flaws & failures from which to derive much of the desired conflict. There seems to be a lot of honesty in her discussions of the company's competition with Marvel (and others) and the dynamics that drove many of the editorial decisions, both in grand scheme and minute scripting. After the Introduction, she focuses in on Wonder Woman, Lois Lane and then Supergirl, before widening out to cover the females of Gotham City and then those of the more adult-oriented Vertigo imprint and finally an overview of the 'New Generation' (the current situation of 2004/2005). She also wrote the couple lines of commentary that accompany each cover's caption which otherwise identified the title & issue, publication date, penciller & inker. So, here is the impressive number of artists that get featured attention (earlier, I made the simplifying decision on this site to track only the pencillers, in most cases): Tony Abruzzo, Neal Adams, Murphy Anderson (4), Ross Andru (3), Chris Bachalo, Jim Balent (2), Ed Benes (2), Stephen R. Bissette, Brian Bolland (8), Philip Bond, Wayne Boring (3), Jack Burnley, John Byrne (5), Nick Cardy (2), John Cassaday, Ernie Chan (2), Ian Churchill, Amanda Conner, Darwyn Cooke (4), Rachel Dodson, Terry Dodson, Mike Esposito, Carlos Ezquerra, Glen Fabry, Pascual Ferry, Gary Frank, José Luis Garcia-López, Melinda Gebbie, Dick Giordano (2), Shane Glines (2), Ed Hannigan, Tony Harris, Irwin Hasen, Rob Haynes, Bryan Hitch, Adam Hughes (8), Carmine Infantino (4), James Jean (3), Phil Jimenez, Jock, Dave Johnson, J.G. Jones (2), Gil Kane (3), Jack Kirby, Leonard Kirk (2), Joe Kubert, Greg Land (3), Jim Lee, Marcos Martin (3), Ed McGuinness (3), Dave McKean, Mike McKone, Tara McPherson, Rags Morales, Irv Novick (2), Bok Oksner (6), Jimmy Palmiotti, Jason Pearson, George Pérez (6), Harry G. Peter (2), Al Plastino, Frank Quitely (2), John Romita, Alex Ross (4), P. Craig Russell**, Tim Sale (3), Damion Scott, Mike Sekowsky (4), Cam Smith, Curt Swan (8), Mark Texeira, Bruce Timm, John Totleben, Michael Turner (4), Ethan VanSciver, Dexter Vines, J.H. Williams III (2), Scott Williams, and Bernie Wrightson.

* - note that all of Bolland's 'well-presented' pieces here appear even better in his own collection on The List.

** - note that Russell's 'well-presented' piece here cannot additionally be found so in his own collection on The List.

Batman Cover To Cover (2005 - DC Comics) Subtitled 'The Greatest Comic Book Covers Of The Dark Knight' (though your own personal choices may have somewhat differed), this volume gathers together hundreds of great cover images and puts them on display. They are grouped into chapters entitled The Dark Knight, Fearsome Foes, Welcome To Fun City, The Dynamic Duo, Batman By Design, Death Traps, Guilty, The Batman Family, Bats, Bizarre Batman, Secrets Of The Batcave, A Death In The Family, Milestones, and World's Finest, not to mention a number of interweaved short artistic discussions about certain cover-choices from comic creators connected to this huge mythos. Out of 240 pages, 174 each feature a full-page cover reproduction (six of those feature three bigger pieces that grow over the central gutter, but all remain acceptable doing so). Then, there's another 47 pages that exhibit two or more covers. All the displays are captioned with an identification of the comic cover & the artist(s) executing it, with the release year, as well as an occasional factoid about its creation, context, or a non-obvious detail about it. Now, I occasionally comment on the 'same-ness' resulting from image gatherings built around some chapter's central-point, most of the images' physical characteristics appearing over-&-over again, but here's a whole book built around a single costumed icon, and yet the wealth of art & creators to choose from results in an incredible diversity of composition, theme, style, focus, details & narrative-oomph and is extremely satisfying. The 'well-presented' illustrators found here are: Jack Abel, Neal Adams (12), Quiqui Alcatena, Murphy Anderson (8), Jim Aparo (4), Terry Austin (2), Eduardo Barreto, Terry Beatty, Lee Bermejo, Jon Bogdanove, Brian Bolland (10)***, Dan Brereton, Norm Breyfogle (3), Jack Burnley (2), Robert Campanella, Nick Cardy, John Cassaday (2), Ernie Chan, Gene Colan, Darwyn Cooke, Carl Critchlow, Alan Davis, Mike Esposito, Wally Fax, Hugh Fleming, José Luis Garcia-Lopez, Joe Giella (5), Dick Giordano (3), Michael Golden, Paul Gulacy**, Cully Hamner, Scott Hampton (2), Ed Hannigan, James Hodgkins, Carmine Infantino (12), Dennis Janke, Jock (2), Dave Johnson (6), Paul Johnson, J.G. Jones, Kelley Jones (2), Michael Kaluta, Bob Kane (8), Gil Kane (2), Stan Kaye, Jae Lee, Jim Lee (7), Alex Maleev, Scott McDaniel, Ed McGuiness, Mike Mignola (2), Frank Miller (2), Sheldon Moldoff (9), Win Mortimer (5), Graham Nolan (3), Irv Novick (4), Kevin Nowlan, Tom Palmer, Jimmy Palmiotti, Charles Paris (5), Jason Pearson, Paul Pope, Joe Quesada, Fred Ray (2), Jerry Robinson (7), Marshall Rogers, Alex Ross (2), George Roussos (2), P. Craig Russell**, Tim Sale (3), Tony Salmons, Lew Sayre Schwartz (3), Damion Scott (2), Bill Sienkiewicz (3), Bob Smith, Dick Sprang (4), Brian Stelfreeze, Karl Story, Curt Swan (2), Ty Templeton (2), Bruce Timm, Alex Toth, John VanFleet (2), Dexter Vines, Matt Wagner (2), Lee Weeks, Richard Williams, Scott Williams (7), Phil Winslade, and Bernie Wrightson.

** - note that Gulacy's and Russell's 'well-presented' pieces here cannot additionally be found so in their own collections on The List.

*** - note that in regards to Bolland's 'well-presented' pieces here, some, but not all, can additionally be found so in his own collection on The List.

Cover Story - The DC Comics Art Of Brian Bolland (2011 - DC Comics) This artbook is 208 pages. After the introduction, there are 101 right pages that each present a full-page reproduction of Bolland's cover art. The left pages include another 33 devoted to a single large cover image, though twice that many are pages with multiple images. Of those 134 'well-presented' pieces, only 26 are shown with the comic-cover typography in place, and while some are line-work, or very-finished sketches, most are full-color. This compilation does tend to group together the covers he did for particular series, creating large sections focused on work created for ANIMAL MAN, WONDER WOMAN, THE INVISIBLES, GOTHAM KNIGHTS, THE FLASH and JACK OF FABLES, but diversity doesn't seem lost because so many of the images seem so varied from the others. Some of the multiple-image pages are displays of all the covers done for a particular book, say, up to 25 to a page. The text is all by Bolland himself, mostly specific anecdotes about the pieces displayed on that page or opposite. Since this book focuses on a single artist, though grouped with the others here, it has also been given a duplicate entry on its own separate page.

Batman Masterpieces (1998 - Watson-Guptill) (by Ruth Morrison). This book, subtitled "Portraits Of The Dark Knight And His World", gathers together almost all the trading-card/chase-card art created for a particular Fleer Skybox set (Batman Master Series), so the backbone of this collection is 95 full-bleed displays and then ten more large reproductions. Accompanying the trading-card exhibits are each artist's insights (frequently with their early thumbnailed proposals), writer Doug Moench's original scene-suggestions and his ongoing narrative that winds through the cards (all were designed as 'chapters' of his single story). I would flag this publication as possibly having a good deal of illustrator-educational value, for those desiring such, as there is no shortage of discussion of compositional strategies, hand-in-hand with medium-handling choices in service of them. All the artists get 'well-presented', namely: Carl Critchlow (9), Joe DeVito, Vincent DiFate, Duncan Fegredo (8), Scott Hampton (40), Alex Horley (5), Nick Jainschigg, Ken Kelly, Romas Kukalis, Paolo Parente (6), Dermot Power (32), and James Warhola. Note that while the softcover edition's cover re-presents one of the cards, the hardback sports a dustcover that shows a new painting, this one by Dave Dorman, that does *not* appear within.

Mythology. The DC Comics Art of Alex Ross (2003 - Pantheon Books) (by Chip Kidd) I'm not as enamored with this book as most seem to be. It's just seems too crowded. I'm not talking about 51 beautiful full-bleed pages, but most of the rest, even the other 118 that feature large reproductions of art pieces, are crowded by other things like pictures, original sources, alternate versions, panel layouts, character sheets or sketchwork, not to mention the captions and other accompany blurbs of text, all seeming to form a jumble that is very very 'busy'. For instance, there's a two page section displaying a number of various art pieces from his mother, Lynette, and seven pages of many illustrations showing his process in creating one cover piece. Eight pages comprise an included complete story (along with another two pages displaying stages of its making . . .). Both sets of endpapers are double-page spreads of two different pieces. A two page checklist of his DC work is printed over another art piece. The indicia & credit information is placed over a rendition of the Flash with letters s-p-a---c----e-----d out, as if they were speed lines - Can *you* say 'Over-Designed' ? It's possible that Kidd took his cue from Ross's works themselves, many being chockfull of a staggering number of individual figures. While I don't care for books that embrace an extreme sterile & isolated gallery-like display, this one swings the pendulum too far in the other direction. Note that there are several editions of this collection, with the later ones having something like 32 more pages of material. Since this book focuses on a single artist, though grouped with the others here, it has also been given a duplicate entry on its own separate page.

DC Comics - The 75th Anniversary Poster Book (2010 - Quirk Books) Being a poster book, this one is big enough to be a bit unwieldy, about 14 x 11 inches. There are 100 poster size images, with all the typography of the comic book covers they are facsimiles of, and on the following page of each is an explication about that comic book, along with the date and artist, followed by two smaller images of other issues of that particular series. The book closes with an index of the included covers with their page numbers, but you'll find that of little use, as the pages themselves are un-numbered. Anyway, the large size provides a great presentation of the works of the following artists: Tony Abruzzo, Neal Adams (4), Murphy Anderson (5), Terry Austin, C. C. Beck, Stephen R. Bissette, Jon L. Blummer (2), Brian Bolland (3)***, Wayne Boring (2), Brett Breeding, Bob Brown, John Byrne, Nick Cardy (2), Vince Colletta, Darwin Cooke (2), Steve Ditko (2), George Evans, Glenn Fabry, Creig Flessel (2), Ramona Fradon (2), Gary Frank, Frank Giacoia, Dave Gibbons, Joe Giella, Dick Giordano, Michael Golden, Jerry Grandenetti, Irwin Hasen, Adam Hughes, Carmine Infantino (2), James Jean (2), Dave Johnson (2), J. G. Jones, Dan Jurgens, Bob Kane (3), Gil Kane (3), Stan Kaye (5), Jack Kirby (2), George Klein (3), Joe Kubert, Jim Lee, David Lloyd, Dave McKean (3), Frank Miller (2), Sheldon Moldoff (2), Jim Mooney, Irv Novick, Bob Oksner (2), Joe Orlando, Charles Paris, George Pérez (2)**, Harry G. Peter, Paul Pope, Howard Purcell (2), Frank Quitely, Fred Ray (2), Marshall Rogers, John Romita (2), Alex Ross (4), Tim Sale, Mike Sekowsky (2), Joe Shuster (3), Jim Starlin, Martin Stein, Curt Swan (8), John Totleben and Berni Wrightson (2).

** - Note that Pérez's 'well-presented' pieces here can all additionally be found so in his own collections farther up The List.

*** - Note that in regards to Bolland's 'well-presented' pieces here, some, but not all, can additionally be found so in his own collection farther up The List.

75 Years Of DC Comics - The Art Of Modern Mythmaking (2010 - Taschen) First, we *cannot* recommend the 2010 1st edition of this tome. It is simply too big to provide the artbook experience we seek. It's 11.5-by-15.5 inches, almost 3 inches thick (720 pages), and 16 pounds! Some commenters seriously said that in addition to it, they wished they had bought a bookstand. My understanding is that a later edition, 2017, is still very big, but of somewhat more manageable proportions with no reduction of amount of content (but obviously each page, otherwise unchanged, would have to be smaller to achieve this). Know that inside you will find 253 pages which feature large reproductions of artwork (covers, splash-pages & some original art)(14 of these are for presenting seven large works bridging the central-gutter, acceptably so). And then another 326 that pull multiple images together. 95 pages are lost to photographs & examples of sequential-art. About a third of the roughly 50 pages dedicated to mostly text share information about artists, as opposed to the other movers & shakers. All the information is pulled together in chronological chapters entitled: The Stone Age, The Golden Age, The Silver Age, The Bronze Age, The Dark Age, The Modern Age, & Afterword:The Digital Age, along with thumbnail-biographies, and an index. The chapters each include an extensive timeline, most often formed out of two facing foldouts, allowing its timeline to be four pages in width. The exhibits are usually captioned by an identification accompanied by commentary or a healthy anecdote. I have to observe that those pages that are not full-page reproductions of something, are very, very generous with the negative space. They are diligent in not bring dismissive of the inkers, crediting them wherever it is possible. So with their inclusion, the 'well-presented' artists here are: Jack Abel, Tony Abruzzo, Neal Adams (12), Dan Adkins, Jack Adler (3), Murphy Anderson (12), Ross Andru (3), Terry Austin, Bernard Bailey, Dan Barry, Sy Barry, C.C. Beck (3), Stephen Bissette, Tex Blaisdell, Jon L. Blummer (2), Brian Bolland (2), Wayne Boring, Brett Breeding, Bob Brown (3), Jack Burnley (4), Nick Cardy (6), John Cassaday, Louis Cazeneuve, Joe Certa, Jack Cole (2), Kevin Conrad, Darwin Cooke (3), Pete Costanza (2), Steve Ditko, Will Eisner, Mike Esposito (2), Ric Estrada, John Richard Flanagan, Creig Flessel (5), John Forte, Romona Fradon, Fred Guardineer (2), José Luis Garcia-Lopez (2), Dave Gibbons (3), Joe Giella (4), Keith Giffen (2), Dick Giordano (4), Jerry Grandenetti (2), Mick Gray, Sid Greene, Mike Grell, Ed Hannigan (2), Frank Harry (2), Irwin Hasen (3), Russ Heath, Don Heck, E.E. Hibbard (2), James Hodgkins, Carmine Infantino (9), Klaus Janson (2), James Jean, Phil Jimenez, Jock, Dave Johnson (2), J.G. Jones, Dan Jurgens, Mike Kaluta, Bob Kane (5), Gil Kane (7), Stan Kaye (8), Jack Kirby (5), George Klein (5), Ray Kryssing, Adam Kubert, Andy Kubert (2), Joe Kubert (8), Andy Lanning, Jim Lee (4), Vince Locke, Larry Mahlstedt, Francis Manapul, David Mazzucchelli, John McCrea, Luke McDonnell, Mort Meskin, Al Milgrom, Frank Miller (4), Norman Mingo, Sheldon Moldoff (6), Ruben Moreira, Win Mortimer (5), Irv Novick (2), Leo O'Mealia, Jerry Ordway, Joe Orlando (2), Charles Paris (2), Paul Pelletitier, George Pérez (3), H.G. Peter (5), Al Plastino (3), Howard Purcell (2), Bill Quackenbush, Fred Ray (2), Jerry Robinson (4), Alex Ross (3), George Roussos, Steve Rude, Vince Russell, Tim Sale, Mike Sekowsky (3), Val Semeiks, Joe Shuster (5), Joe Simon, Walt Simonson, Jack Sparling, Dick Sprang (2), Vin Sullivan (3), Curt Swan (17), Jill Thompson, Alex Toth (5), John Totleben, H.J. Ward, J.H. Williams, Scott Williams (4), Barry Windsor-Smith, Bill Wray, and Bernie Wrightson (2).